CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

In a Nutshell...

The California Academy of Sciences is San Francisco’s landmark natural history museum in the heart of Golden Gate Park, opposite the de Young Museum. In its 400,000 square feet of space, visitors can marvel at its dioramas of African animals in its African Hall, and explore the stars in its 90 foot in diameter domed planetarium fitted with the latest in digital magic. The planetarium hangs over the world’s deepest coral reef display where one can fight the crowds to get a view of some of its 2,000 fish. A second 90 foot dome contains a steamy exhibit of the rain forests of the world with some 40 different species of birds, just a small part of the museum’s 10,000 live animals. Other popular attractions include a giant tyrannosaurus rex skeleton with its mouth open for business, and the Amazon Flooded Forest exhibit where you can go through an underwater glass tunnel to get an up-close look at piranhas and anacondas.

Visitors are welcome go up on the roof, where from an observation platform, one can gaze out over the 2.5 acres of roof that has been covered with plants native to the grasslands of California, which as of this writing and unlike the real grasslands of California of today, is completely free of cows.

It speaks well of early California that the Academy of Sciences was founded in 1853, only four years after the start of the gold rush and at a time when San Francisco was the ultimate boom town, filled with fast buck artists.